Regulatory bodies and authoritative dictionaries for English
Creating a new word
What are the criteria to adopt new words into English?
I've always been told, at least in English class, that English is so complicated for non-native speakers to learn and has a variety of flaws.
These teachers also point out that English's greatest strength is picking up new words. I know we assimilate words from other languages, 'promote' words from slang to standard and sometimes just come up with new words.
Opinions of educators aside, how is it that words get added to the language? Does someone call up the folks that write the Oxford English dictionary or what?
Edit in response to Callithumpian's comment: that's good to know about the Oxford folks, but what about any other standardization groups? If not, how does it usually happen that new words trickle in to different official publications? I've never heard of any International Society of English or anything like that. On the other hand, I haven't looked terribly far.
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